Britain is scorned and insulted across the EU. Why do we stay?

Could a mainstream British Conservative become President of the European Commission? Or President of the European Council? You only need to put the question.

Britain is excluded from a leadership role in the EU, not because Continentals have some irrational prejudice against cricket or Elgar, but because of a fundamental incompatibility of outlook. We are interested in free markets and co-operation with our neighbours; the others are interested in merger.

This is true even of the supposedly reformist governments. Regular readers of this blog won't be surprised by the foul-mouthed tiradeof Poland's foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski: the man is as charmless as he is vain and self-absorbed. What is interesting is the matter-of-fact way in which the other Polish ministers join him in vilifying the British Government.

Is this because of some long-standing enmity between the two states? Hardly. Poland is an old friend, the only country to have fought alongside us from the beginning of the Second World War to the end. Huge numbers of Poles have chosen to work here, following in the footsteps of the Polish migrants who, in 1940, fought for freedom in the Battle of Britain and, later, in North Africa, Italy, France and the Netherlands, even as their own homeland was overrun.

So why is our government spurned and traduced by ministers in Warsaw? For the same reason that we are disliked across Europe's palaces and chanceries, namely our resistance to European integration. The EU was supposed to make countries get on better; but, in reality, it's the cause of almost all our quarrels with our neighbours these days, especially those with the Germans. If it weren't for Brussels, we'd be getting along famously.

Whenever I argue that Britain should secure some sort of country-club status, an EFTA-plus deal based on open markets rather than political amalgamation, I get the same answer from worldly Sir Humphrey types. "We need to have influence. We need to have a seat at the top table". Chaps, how much clearer can it be that we have no such influence? It's not a recent thing: the Sikorski tapes recall the Spanish minister who was unwittingly recorded describing Tony Blair as "a total wanker" ("un gillipollas integral").

We can see, in the row over the Commission Presidency, how pettily we weigh in the counsels of the EU. We should rejoin the wider world, where we still have friends. We should replace the rancour and quarrelling that comes from EU membership with the mutual satisfaction that comes from free trade. We should be a good neighbour to the EU, not a bad tenant.